


Full Bloom

by snarkyspirit



Category: No Fandom
Genre: Childhood Memories, Children, F/F, F/M, Flowers, Hospitals, Synesthesia, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-01-31 18:05:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12687447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snarkyspirit/pseuds/snarkyspirit
Summary: What a pity, the young boy thought. He had still not yet found his hope.





	Full Bloom

Full Bloom

His life used to be filled with spirals of pale tea rose. As hints of lilac imbued the sky as the sun set just above the horizon, a young boy sat in a meadow filled with thousands of colourful flowers. The smell of gardenias pervaded the air as he took small, calm breaths. He was simply there, existing, without a care in the world, plucking at the flowers with a bored expression upon his face, and grass stains on his knees.

He was waiting, but did not yet know what exactly he was waiting for. As the sky turned from amber to navy, he was collected by a nurse and brought back to the hospital facility. The vibrant colors turned back to stoic white as he was fussed over, and brought back to his room. What a pity, the young boy thought. He had still not yet found his hope.

The hospital had been all he had known since long before he could remember. The boy, Saffron, had been born quite ill and never recovered. His only friends were the teddys that resided on the table across his bed, his only comfort was the meadow he had accidentally stumbled upon when exploring the outside world.

Even now, at age, seven, this place was all he knew, and the meadow all he ever cared about. It was the only place with even a dash of life, and it was where he developed his love for colours. The other children only spoke of rainbow hues, but Saffron saw an entire universe.

Sometimes things that were clearly green did not feel green to him. The blanket he owned looked lime green but felt like tangerine. When he learned numbers, seven _had_ to be azure, otherwise it would not look right. The soft lull of his mother’s voice was salmon and the gruff tone of his father’s byzantine. The way everyone else described things were always wrong or too vague.

Along with the disease he already had, his doctors told them he had synesthesia. They explained that it meant his senses were all jumbled, and that was why he saw sounds as colors and words as images. He was never normal.

The other kids did not play with him as much afterwards. It was one thing to be physically sick, and another to be mentally different.

Saffron began to enjoy solitude more than company and would more often that not, escape to the field in order to regain a sense of normality. The flowers were the only things where the colors made sense. Each one had its own personality, each one its own hue. He learned many of their names and the colours they were, and began to describe the things he saw with words instead of sounds.

Amber was his personal favourite color. It reminded him of the lovely lulling of stories and fables, bringing him to a gentle sleep. Amber was his favourite, and that was that.

It was quite the day when he met her. Saffron had been sitting in the meadow when he noticed a girl also there. The girl was about his age and had her back facing towards him.

How peculiar, he had thought. Normally it was just him in the field, his only company the flowers. He had not once seen this girl before, and he did not like her presence. Slowly getting up from his comfortable spot, he stalked over to the girl.

“Why are you here?” He asked upon reaching her.

Without sparing him a glance, the girl opened her mouth and spoke in a witty tone.

“That is quite a way to greet someone.”

“Well, how should I greet you then?” Saffron replied, affronted. Without missing a beat, the girl hums out a reply.

“I think considering our surroundings, the obvious way to introduce yourself is to say your name and then ask how the other is doing. I’ll go first.” She whips her head around, eyes dancing with fire and a mischievous smile on her face. “My name is Marigold, flower you today?”

At first, Saffron did not know how to respond. He was taken aback by the liveliness of the other and quite confused.

This meadow was property of the hospital, someone healthy should not be here. Noticing the way the girl, Marigold, was expectantly looking at him, he hastily responded.

“Um, uh, I’m Saffron and I’m good. You?” He speaks, stumbling over his words a bit. The other rolls her eyes.

“So are you Saffron or are you ‘Good’? If you’re ‘good’, you could just call me ‘fine and dandelion’!” She laughs, taking a bit of joy in Saffron’s nervousness.

“I’m Saffron, okay? Now why are you here? This is my place, mine.” The boy spits out, face slowly turning scarlet. Marigold offered a small smile and offered a hand.

“I was simply telling the flowers about my day. Would you like to as well?”

Looking at the extended hand and the grin on her face, Saffron sighed and took her hand, sitting down on the ground. As she whispered to the daffodils and sang to the daisies, he smiled. This was not so bad, he thought to himself. This was ceil, the soft blue of the sky.

The color marigold may have been described by most as a pastel yellow, but Marigold the person was definitely not. The color marigold felt fake, like forced smiles or the sickly sweet songs that many pop artists would make.

The person Marigold was an apple green, a color that could not be explained but felt vaguely like the warmth of a tart pie baking in the oven. Marigold the girl, she was tangy and sour with a hint of sugar if you tasted hard enough.

The pair became close from that day on. They would meet every day after lunch and after dinner to talk to the flowers and each other, finding a company within one another that others could not replace.

Saffron was more shy and quiet than Marigold but it did not matter. They complimented each other, were two peas in a pod. Somedays, the boy could even forget that he was ill in the first place.

But not always, it was very hard to forget.

Saffron would miss their meetings some days, too busy with treatments and medicine. Sometimes whilst talking to the flowers, he burst out into coughs. He had to go back into the facility once because he began coughing so hard, specks of blood covered the delicate white flowers. Instead of being repulsed, Marigold just smiled at him and helped him walk back to the building despite her small stature.

“You’re gonna be fine. Now turn the sa-frown upside down! We always have tomorrow.”

Even when Saffron did not turn up for the next three days, Marigold still greeted him with a smile on her face. She did not ask where he had been, nor did she get upset, instead telling him that the flowers had missed him.

(Even if it was just to the pair, the flowers did seem to perk up a bit upon his arrival.) Her colour gradually turned from apple green to candy floss, a sweetness that could cheer anyone up any day.

There were many memories made. They liked eating ice cream a lot and tag was a popular game to play. They had searched for fairies and pirates and treasure behind petals of flowers and told secrets to the wind. Naivety was a blessing, as the two children laughed without a care for the world. These days were lavender, floral and soft with sweet scents of loveliness. It was the right hue of lavender too, that felt like blankets hugging you close and holding you dear.

Saffron begins to call Marigold ‘Candyfloss’ after her colour, and she in return begins to call him ‘Lost Boy’. He explains his synesthesia and how he sees her wonderful laugh, and she just shyly smiles. She tells him that she calls him Lost Boy because of how he always seems lost in thought.

Saffron likes the name and think it fits, in more ways than one. In a way, Marigold is like Peter Pan. She is there to whisk him away to another world where they don’t have to think about the future, and he is there to follow her, like the lost boys in the story. He thinks of how they will exist together, forever.

One day, Marigold was silent. This was rare, considering she normally had to most to chit chat about with the blossoms, but that day she just sat and stared at the sky until Saffron asked her what was wrong.

As she stared upwards, the boy pondered for the first time since their first encounter, why she was near the hospital. The facility was so gloomy and she was so cheerful. She also was always there, every single day, even when Saffron missed because of operations and such.

“I wish you would get better soon. My mama used to say when people got too sick, they disappeared and became flowers. Each one of them is different and unique because they represent the person they were before they got too sick. I talk to the flowers every day because they might be lonely. Even if I speak nonsense, they will still remember that they are loved.” After saying these words, Marigold looked at Saffron with a wobbly smile. “Please get better soon. I don’t want you to become a flower too, you’re the only other that understands. Daisy is too oblivious, and you’re my first _friend._ ”

Marigold was young. She was seven and that meant he was a year older. Because he was older, that meant he had to take care of her. That day was a sad once, and Saffron tried to cheery her up with blankets and hot cocoa.He told stories to distract her and ignored her sniffling unless it worsened.

Normally, Marigold helped Saffron get through his every day but today it was the opposite. It was his turn to return the many favors he had received from the other.

At the time, Saffron had comforted Marigold with words of assurance. He had become eight a few months ago, old enough to understand death and loss. He also was old enough to note that Marigold had used past tense, instead of present. That day, Marigold was catalina blue, like a stormy sea.

She did not cry, and Saffron just thought of how strong the girl was. In the back of his mind, Saffron wondered if this meant she wouldn’t be coming to the hospital anymore, but he pushed that thought away. Today Marigold needed assurance and condolence, they could think about other things tomorrow.

Marigold didn’t come back tomorrow. Or the day after. Saffron counted two hundred and seventy days before he gave up. The girl with such bright fire in her eyes wasn’t going to come back.

When Saffron was twelve, he was told he was almost cured. Within months, he might be able to go to a real school and live in a real house instead of the white emptiness that surrounded him. For the first time since he was nine, he went back out to the nearby meadow to shout to the flowers his joy.

He stopped dead in his tracks when he noticed a girl, his age, sitting with them bent down close to the ground, whispering to the flowers. He stood there in disbelief as she turned around, and offered a bright grin.

There were embers in her eyes and an air of warmth around her. He was frozen has the girl got up and brushed off her skirt. It was not Marigold, that was obvious by her different face and hair. She looks similiar though, and Saffron has helpless hope that it was just because they were older now, and had not seen each other in awhile.

Not moving a single inch, he held a blank face as she walked towards him with a smile on her face before holding out a hand.

“Hello! It’s nice to meet you, my name is Pine. What is your name?” She cheerfully asked. Any hope that it was Marigold died down as Saffron took a deep breath and shook her hand.

“My name is Saffron, flower you today?” When she giggled but did not recognize the familiar phrase, a small piece of himself died inside. The girl made of candyfloss was right. Death really does blossom in a way.

Even though Pine was not Marigold, Saffron became good friends with her. His release became delayed when they discovered another issue, but he was still going to recover. In two years at most if nothing else is found, they promised. All Saffron had to do was wait two years.

(He bitterly thinks about how Marigold did not even wait one day after her mother’s death).

Pine was a girl who discovered she was sick around the age of eleven. She was admitted to a different hospital before being transferred here, she says. The day Saffron found her in the meadow was the first day she had been allowed to go outside.

Pine reminds Saffron so much of Marigold it hurts. She even has the same colours and no matter how much Saffron tries to overlook that, he can’t. Pine did not deserve to be a replacement, but in a way, she was. She was the closure that Saffron never had.

Eventually the boy gets sick of feeling like he was lying. He tells the other about the girl with fire in her eyes and how he was sorry if he was not appreciating Pine as her own person. The girl just smiles wistfully and tells him that it is okay, and that she does not lame him. As he sobs into her shoulder, Saffron does not see the confusion that Pine is battling down on her own.

As Saffron becomes stronger everyday, Pine becomes weaker. One day, three weeks before Saffron is to be released, the girl arrives at the meadow in a wheelchair. It is the beginning of the end.

Pine breaks down one day. She would not stop twitching and fidgeting before Saffron asked her what was wrong. She spilled out words one after another, telling Saffron how she felt so _so_ alone. She was being supported financially by a distant relative who had given her up when they found out she was sick, and the day they found out she was sick was the day she had lost some of her memories. She had woken up in the hospital knowing nothing when the doctors explained the situation. She called herself Pine because she thought it fitting, with her pining over the past. Saffron vowed to keep her company after he is released, not leaving her like Marigold did him.

(He helps her sneak out to watch the starry sky at night one day. Under the bright twinkling lights, she admits she feels like he is so so familiar and kisses him on the cheek. Pine is not getting better, but they pretend like she is.)

Watching Pine go unconscious when going back to the facility is one of the most terrifying experiences Saffron thinks he ever will know. At first she was just twitchy but it escalates into seizures and there is screaming and crying and the boy isn’t sure if it he himself or her who was the loudest.

From that day on, she has to wear an IV with the fluid bag in her backpack whenever she leaves her room. The still talk to the flowers but eventually, she cannot leave so Saffron begins bringing her potted plants. Never cut flowers, because cut flowers will die. There is already enough death in a hospital, there is no need for even more.

She gasps awake one day, clawing at her chest and pulling out hair, hysterical. She keeps screaming for her Uncle and keeps sobbing, repeating the word flower over and over again. When Saffron is allowed back into her room, Pine takes one look at him before sobbing. As he rushed over, she pulls him close and hugs him as tightly as her feeble body can. Then, the boy freezes as the hair on the back of his neck stands up straight.

“Say that again please?” He feebly asks the girl. She takes a gasping breath and wipes at her eyes, choking down another sob. As the girl he knows as Pine composes herself, he does not feel anything. He has to make sure he did not hear wrong.

Silence, until..

“Lost Boy.”

What was happening? How did she know that name? As he stood still, she pushes him away and buries her face in her hands.

“I’m so sorry, Lost Boy. I didn’t remember until now.”

With those ten words, Saffron’s entire world is turned upside down.

The boy sits deadly still in the room and Pine sobs. Marigold was her cousin, she cries, and Marigold was gone. There was a car accident following the ride home soon after Marigold’s mother’s death. Pine had been diagnosed with the same disease a few weeks prior and tension was high and spirits were low.

Marigold wanted Pine (At the time known as Daisy) to go to the same hospital where her mother had gone, but Pine had refused. She wanted to go to a different one.

( _“I killed her! I KILLED HER!”_ Pine screams, as Saffron holds onto her tightly. _“If Uncle hadn’t been so distracted by me, we would’ve gotten into the car crash. I’m so so sorry Saffron, all Mari wanted was to talk to Lost Boy, and I killed her.”_ The sobbing girl chokes out how she now remembered being the only one in the car to make it out alive.)

\---

_“Did you know that flowers can hear every word you speak? I’m not just telling them about my day because I have no one else to talk to, but because they can grant wishes too!” The cheerful young girl exclaimed. Saffron tilted his head in a confused manner._

_“What do you mean they can grant wishes?” He asks before the other girl shushed him._

_“Quiet! If anyone else knows, they might become greedy and wish for things they don’t really want. Every wish has a price, so you shouldn’t wish unless you really really reaaaally want it.” She explains. Then she looks at Saffron with a smile on her face. “Lost Boy, I’ma tell you a secret. I’ve already wished for three things, but I think the flowers will only grant one. I hope they grant both though! If one doesn’t happen, I’m positive the other will.”_

_Curiosity peaked, the boy asks what in the world the girl could have wished for._

_“I’ll tell you one of the three, it’s for you to get better!”_

_It turned out Marigold’s wish did come true. She wished for Saffron to get better, but it turns out the price for his life was the cost of her own._

\---

Saffron does not know how to react at first. So many things make sense now, too many things. The resemblance between Marigold and Pine (who once again began going by Daisy), the sudden disappearance of the former, and why Daisy had amnesia. He holds the girl close that day until she calmed down. Then, the boy goes home and straight into his mother’s arms to so himself.

“Why is it that the best people are the ones to die?” He whispers before her soothing voice replies.

“It’s because they are so selfless they give their lives up for others to live.” How true, Saffron had thought. How true. He was lying still in bed when he remembers Marigold had three wishes. He was already healthy, and the flowers only granted one wish.

Candyfloss’ mother was not saved… So did this mean that neither would Daisy? Needless to say, Saffron does not get much sleep that night, or any nights for weeks to come. His home used to be amber, a colour he loved dearly, now it was ash. The colour of the dead.

There’s an understanding between Daisy and Saffron that her end is coming soon. It become apparent when her breaths become labored, her skin much paler too. They just keep each other company until the very end, clutching each other’s hands, with the other out stretched towards the future. The pair make plans for college, something that they knew Daisy would not be able to go to. They talk about trivial thing such as flower puns and riddles for wits.

(The winning flower pun goes to Saffron when he goes _‘Leaf me alone if you don’t like my tree puns. The root of your problem is you don’t like to branch out to any puns but flowers! Ah, don’t worry, I’m all bark and no bite.’_ ).

They look towards the future, denying what is bound to happen. They think perhaps if they don’t acknowledge it, it will not happen.

It does happen. When Saffron is sixteen and Daisy fifteen, she passes away in her sleep. There’s a ghost of laughter on her face as she lays still, unmoving and lifeless. There is hysteria upon realization, and chaos upon removal. Saffron grieves for months on end before he even thinks about moving on.

Two of his closest friend had died. He wonders if it was because he wasted his wish, asking for him and his friends to be children forever. In a twisted way, it came true. It came true, because both Marigold and Daisy never lived long enough to truly grow up.

He does move on eventually. It takes time, but he really does. Find a nice boy whom he marries, and grows old with. Upon his death bed, Saffron says his sorries. He is sorry for leaving his children and grandchildren behind in old age. He says goodbye to the living world and the joys that are found there. Most of all, he says hello.

His spouse had passed away a few years before him, and Saffron smiles. He looks forward of introducing Marigold and Daisy to him. As the corner of his vision flickers and the lights become too bright, Saffron is young again. Millions of colours and experiences flood his vision and he is overwhelmed at first, but he settles quickly. He’s in a meadow behind a hospital once again, his hand with his loved one, and in front of them are two young girls. They look up at once, and smile at him.

“We’ve been waiting!”

 

\---

  
_It is hard to notice, but in that same meadow, a marigold, daisy, saffron, and snapdragon bend towards the sky. The appear to be chattering with one another, but that wasn’t quite possible, now was it?_

**Author's Note:**

> This was just a random thought spew that I thought to share with everyone. It did turn out a lot sadder than I expected though..


End file.
